Tuesday, 5 August 2008

Samo shit

This film has been shouting out at me every time I see it when I browse Fopp, so I rented it and watched it. In terms of the film, this one definitely won't go down as one of my favourites- Despite the star cast (David Bowie, Courtney Love) and the arthouse qualities, this bio-film never goes into enough depth on any aspect of the protagonist's life for me personally.

Nonetheless, the film opened my eyes to the works of and the artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, of the late seventies and eighties. Before he received recognition in the art world, Basquiat scrawled on the walls of New York under the name Samo... as in Same ol' shit.

In many senses, under the identity of Samo, his graffiti brings Neckface to mind, but slightly less sinister:

Even when Basquait evolved into a canvas artist of the Neo- expressionist strand, his skeletlon like figures and typography still remind me of Neckface:

The press would describe Basquiat as "the Jimi Hendrix of the art world", and Basquiat, the film portrays this in the sense of his drug fuelled, sexed up existence (he died of from a speedball overdose at 27). It also suggests that Basquiat was expolited by the art world because he was black (half Haitian, half Puerto Rican). His intense relationship with Andy Warhol was also speculated upon in this way.www.basquiat.com